Lots of talk about the Jaguar rebrand. Some say that the talk is the point. I disagree.
Selling Jaguars is the point. Cringe does not translate into sales. And the visuals of their rebrand reel are…cringe.
Let’s take a look.
The elevator doors to the smoking section open, and we are introduced to this exceptionally geometric crowd of equity and inclusion that drips with board-room brain droppings. Jaguar is for everyone, right? Because luxury is for everyone, right? (just not the disabled, pregnant, or the ‘bad’ kind of asian….shhhhhh.)
Or maybe the message is, '“old notions of luxury are meaningless in the modern world.” Okay, fine. Genderqueer fluid everything people deserve Jaguars too. Let’s move on.
Apparently the smoking section elevator was actually an iPhone charging plug snatched from the wall of a 3-pack Marlboro smoker. Our case of unconventionals strides into….IDK….the same place you walk into after leaving the home in Beetlejuice? However, the exuberance is deliciously palpable.
Much of the reel is a list of commands.
We are told, in crisp, round letters, to “live vivid.” The instruction hovers over imagery that comes into focus as the copy fades.
Then we must “delete ordinary.” I think I have seen this kind of “out of the box” thinking before…
“Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.”
– Henry Ward Beecher
Our aged tradesman is doubtless serving up a preview of the “bar code” Jaguar that was part of all this exuberance.
Okay, now I am sincerely pissed off.
None of this exuberance was cheap. Did no one in the client review cut into the convo to say, “Sledgehammers? For breaking moulds? Groundbreaking.”
I am getting a kick out of the ironic blend between blue-collar trades and luxury here. Perhaps we truly are living in a new world where anything is possible.
Whew! The end of the workday is here! All that painting and sledgehammering can leave one positively overcome with the need to re-assemble with your genderfucked, liquidqueer team and look to the left and right. The scene reminds me of another famous example of looking to the left and right:
There’s an old, stupid, off-color joke about WWII that is told at the expense of Poles.
“How did the Nazis invade Poland? They marched in backwards and said they were leaving.”
Somehow, someway, this reel managed to make that joke even stupider.
Near the end, we get another command to copy nothing. The video expression of this unconventional exuberance? The cast stands up and walks backward out of frame.
“Copy nothing…be original…think even outsider the box!”
Walk backward. You must be fucking kidding.
The reel ends: Jaguar.
Not a car in sight.
I’ve heard the argument made that luxury branding leans into the strange and unusual because luxury living is strange and unusual.
But the argument is bullshit. All creatives know that there’s no bigger jackpot than landing a patron willing to toss a ton of money toward your vision. That’s what Italian Vogue did for Steven Klein.
But Klein creates art. It is art at the service of premium commerce, but, without question, his product is still art.
Whatever this reel was supposed to be, it definitely was not art. CLICK HERE for art.
Jaguar’s reel delivered no message other than “we suppose this is what we think diversity and contemporary culture is….we read about it on TikTok.”